Asri-unix.873 net.space utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:C70:sri-unix!REM@MIT-MC Tue Mar 2 03:25:21 1982 Quasar starships, contd. One other obvious effect not mentionned in your (HPM's) message is: Redshifting = time-expansion, blusshifting = time-contraction. Thus a rocket blast lasting 1 year but redshifted or blueshifted by a factor of 10 would seem to last 10 years or 0.1 year upon receipt. So a redshifted rocket blast would seem to be a longlasting quasar while a blueshifted rocket blast would seem to be a supernova somewhat. Maybe some of the mysterious x-ray bursts are blueshifted rockets? However I agree that it'd be stupid to blast your rocket in the exact direction of some planet you want to survey for life. Thus we'd see only far-away blasts that were aimed to miss a planet destined to survey and just happened to be aimed at this distant unknown planet called Earth that isn't even cataloged yet in Encyclopedia Gallactica. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.